Ria is building this residential home, which is a craftsman kit by FinestKind Models (part #112). I have not been able to find any information about this kit on the Internet, so I suspect it is an old one and long out of production. We bought it at Papa Ben's Train Place when they were clearing out all of their S-scale inventory. I think we paid $17.

The photo below shows a close-up of the label on the box.

Inside the box we find a bag of metal detail parts, a bag of sheet material (wood and cardboard), a bundle of dimensional lumber, and a bag of window frames (probably Grandt Line).

Also included are scale and isometric drawings of the structure, and type-written pages of instructions.

The first thing Ria did was to assemble and paint the chimney, as well as paint the window frames.

After making photocopies of the drawings, she cut out the paper parts that make up the walls, pasted them to the sheet material provided for the walls (using Eileen's Tacky Glue) and cut the walls to shape, including cutting out the window and door openings.

Next, Ria installed glass (clear styrene) supplemented by Krystal Clear to simulate real glass. After the window frames were fitted and glued into the wall sections, she cut some curtains. The curtains were made from fancy paper napkins found at the dollar store. The window frames have already been weathered using Bragdon Enterprise weathering powders. The wall sections have also been re-enforced with square strip wood. Although both sides of the walls were painted, some warping still occurred.

Ria tried to follow the instructions which state to work on the flooring before assembling the walls, but it seems somewhat backwards. The walls are rather fixed, whereas the flooring can be adjusted to fit. So, instead she started assembling the walls. This photo shows the small section's walls attached. Also installed are the horizontal boards that will hold up one side of the porch roof.

This photo shows the walls of the larger part of the house assembled.

to be continued...